Shieldbashers

Nightbringer

2

SEP/10

(Summary: The party travels to acquire Fausto’s Dawn War weapon only to find it shattered at the feet of a mortally wounded aspect of Bahamut. They then battle Fausto’s nemesis, Nightbringer, and tame it. Fausto takes back the dark blade and, empowered, turns it into a +6 Holy Avenger)

The acrid smell of death fills the air. You have entered a chamber (where?) surrounded in twisted rock slick with an oily substance. Across the chamber, the rock has been ripped away revealing a chamber of carefully and beautifully sculpted white stone. Shadows dance around the far edges of the room. A river of black liquid flows through the center of the chamber splitting the two sections in half. At the far side, two stone staircases lead to a platform. Upon the platform stands a statue, arms held out.

A small platform rests in the middle of the chamber on the near side of the corrupt river. A skull rests on top of the platform. Bodies of armed and armored humanoids lay about, many of them turned to ash. Some form of magical field surrounds the platform, you can see it shimmering in the dim light.
As you approach the statue, it seems more and more familiar. An old man, head raised up, an expression of pain and sadness on its face. Its hands are empty, though it would appear it once held something out. Under your feet, you hear the crunch of what sounds like glass. Looking down, you realize it is shards of steel. In the corner of the chamber you find a hilt of a sword, gems smashed and its gold and platinum hilt scraped and beaten. In the chest of the statue you see a deep crack – a deep stab wound in the statue’s chest.

With growing horror you realize the statue is no statue at all but a living being.

You realize this is no statue, this is an Aspect of Bahamut himself. For five hundred thousand years it has stood here holding your weapon for you. Now the weapon is sundered and the aspect mortally wounded.

“I knew you would come,” says a dark voice in the rear of the chamber. From the shadows steps a humanoid, as light splashes across him you see a Dragonborn. Armor scorched and dripping that same oily substance. In its hand is a sword, black-bladed. The blade is terribly familiar.

“You thought you could cast me aside. You thought you could abandon me; destroy me! You could no longer throw me away than to stop being yourself.”

Behind you you can feel the agony of the Aspect, the wound will soon take its life if you are to do nothing.